APOLOGIES to anyone who ventured down to the market to peruse the Gloucester Brewery stall after last week’s effusive column focussed on them. The day it came out in the paper they announced they were going to be away! Back this week though!

As I write, there is glorious sunshine beating down and the temperatures are rising; ripening and bringing on all those wonderful summer vegetables and soft fruits (especially) that help make summer so wonderful. Styan’s Family Produce, who are situated outside the Job centre in Union Street, are stocked with new potatoes, peas, broad beans, asparagus, tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, rocket, radishes and a host of other produce while Over Farm, also at the market with asparagus, rhubarb and strawberries are now situated elsewhere. Besley’s Strawberries also returned recently and although Newark Farm are absent from the organic veg aisle for a few weeks, Coleshill and Hotch Potch have new produce coming on too, with broad beans, courgettes, aubergines, salad leaves, baby carrot bunches, rocket and lettuces, tomatoes, cucumbers; the list goes on!

As these crops become available we are once again able to really understand why farmers’ markets have become such a success. It’s not just about supporting local farmers or enjoying the chance to get to know the producers themselves or indeed just about the reduction of food miles and maintaining a culture of small family farming in the UK. It is mostly about the quality of the produce.